Texts reveal discussions of hacking laptop of OnlyFans model’s dead boyfriend, warrant says
An arrest warrant for the parents of OnlyFans model and accused murderer Courtney Clenney lays out how she, her attorneys and her parents discussed trying to gain alleged illegal entry to her dead boyfriend’s computer, in a group text chat long after his death.
The nine-page arrest document says that in February 2023, with investigators unable to unlock Clenney and her parent’s cellphones, a judge signed off on a warrant giving police access to iCloud accounts that stored information inside those phones. The warrant says that once access was gained, investigators uncovered — among more than 4,000 messages — conversations between Clenney, her parents and Clenney’s South Florida attorneys, Frank Prieto and Sabrina Puglisi.
“Included within the group chat were various discussions about the victim’s laptop and how to access it,” Miami-Dade Police cyber crimes detective Adrian Perez wrote in the couple’s arrest warrant signed by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Mindy Glazer earlier this month.
Clenney, 28, was charged with second-degree murder in the stabbing death of her boyfriend Christian Obumseli after a heated argument in their bayside Miami condominium in August 2022. News of the domestic strife between the young globetrotting couple — he a crypto currency trader, she a social media influencer with millions of followers — propelled the story to international headlines.
Parents arrested in Austin
Clenney’s parents, Deborah Lyn Clenney, 57 and Kim DeWayne Clenney, 60, were arrested Tuesday in Austin, Texas. They’ve been charged with a single count of illegally accessing Obumseli’s computer and are expected to be extradited to Miami. South Florida prosecutors believe Kim Clenney grabbed the computer from his daughter’s apartment at One Paraiso in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood, some time between Obumseli’s April 2022 death and his girlfriend’s arrest in Hawaii in August that same year.
Though Prieto and Puglisi are mentioned as trying to figure out how to access Obumseli’s computer in the warrant, they aren’t accused of any crimes.
Courtney Clenney, who’s currently jailed at the Turner Guilford Knight correctional center, was charged late Tuesday with the same offense as her parents, illegally hacking into someone else’s computer. Her attorneys were expected at a hearing in Miami-Dade criminal court Thursday.
The arrest warrant for Courtney Clenney’s parents explains how several people linked to Clenney struggled to gain entry to an electronic device owned by Obumseli that may have held evidence related to the alleged crime — and how law enforcement was able to use legal maneuvers to uncover some of the discussions that took place.
Miami-Dade state prosecutors say that according to one message recovered from Deborah Clenney’s cellphone, Kim Clenney asked if anyone had left “...any potential passwords for the laptop.” State prosecutors believe the laptop referred to was Obumseli’s.
Prieto responds, according to investigators, “Yes, Sabrina and I have a list. We will provide.” The Sabrina referred to is most likely Clenney’s other attorney, Sabrina Puglisi.
Prieto and Puglisi released a prepared statement Wednesday saying the arrests of Courtney Clenney’s parents could be “prosecutorial overreach and misconduct.”
“We believe the Clenney family has been targeted with some trumped-up charges to discredit them in the press and make their lives miserable. It stinks of a power play by prosecutors to control the narrative.” the statement read. “It appears the prosecutors are going for media mileage in this one with little or no evidence as we have yet to know what the true accusations are. It’s unnecessary and distasteful.”
The warrant says that when the group figured out the computer’s entry code in September 2023, Kim Clenney responds, “Hell yeah! That PIN worked.”
It’s unclear what, if anything, was discovered or taken from the device.
Attorney Larry Handfield, who is representing the Obumselis in a lawsuit, said Tuesday night that the family is “at least satisfied that justice is being served.”
International news after murder
Everything alleged about Obumseli’s murder led to international media attention: Two young beautiful people living in an exclusive waterfront condo in sexy Miami in a relationship filled with domestic strife. They also spent time in Texas, traveled to Las Vegas and frequented Hawaii.
Known as Courtney Tailor on social media, she boasted over 2 million followers on various platforms.
Her attorneys have argued the killing was in self-defense and justified. Relatives of Obumseli assert he was never a threat. In the days following her arrest, investigators uncovered several episodes of what appeared to be Clenney attacking Obumseli.
Prosecutors released a series of text messages in which Obumseli accused his girlfriend of stabbing him twice as well as a recording of her screaming at him and using racial slurs. Clenney’s defense attorneys have slammed the recordings, text messages and other evidence as “one-sided” and being cherry-picked.
The couple had been dating for two years prior to Obumseli’s death. Clenney was once arrested for domestic battery in Las Vegas, and police were called several times to their home in Austin, Texas.
In Miami, staff at the condo building where they lived tried to evict them after numerous complaints. Surveillance video from February 2022 caught her attacking him in the elevator of their Miami apartment building. Police say they received a frantic call from Courtney Clenney on April 3, 2022.
She said her boyfriend had been stabbed.
An earlier version of this story attributed a quote incorrectly to attorney Frank Prieto. It should have been attributed to Kim Clenney.
